I have a low level wizard owlin with very low strength (-2 modifier) and the Feather Fall spell prepared. I was wondering what would happen if I try to fly while holding onto someone under the effects of feather fall as a way to get them out of the reach of a monster or to pull them away from a river of lava they were fall down to?

I already asked our DM and he’s not sure how he would rule that, so I’m trying to get opinions from others to discuss with him.

So you're talking about the owlin not so much carrying the falling player off somewhere as you are describing a situation where the flying owlin kind of tugs them laterally as they fall slowly to allow them to land somewhere other than in the lava? That seems like more of a DM ruling than something the rules lay out. We have encumbrance rules, but I don't know if they would apply, since you're not really lifting or carrying the falling player--just affecting its trajectory as it falls. Maybe an athletics check at whatever DC.

I'd allow it at my table, for whatever that's worth.

They aren't being levitated, so they will continue to fall at 60 ft per round. Your flying speed is only 30 ft per round (or 60 ft if you Dash). So you will have to dash to keep up with them falling vertically - this doesn't give any extra speed to pull them horizontally as well.

Featherfall doesn't change their weight.  It just slows their descent, so if another character's weight is greater than what your Owlin can carry, you would fall with them.  Alternatively, if you're trying to use your flight to direct their descent as they fall to a safer location, then you're good up to your push/drag weight limit.

Of course, if your DM is willing to Rule of Cool it, more power to you.

With a Strength Score of 6 you can push/pull 180 lbs. If the character is 180 lbs or less you can push or pull them, although if they are more than 90 lbs then your speed becomes 5 ft -- which is 10 ft a round if dashing. 

If the Strength Score is 7 then the numbers are 210 lbs push/pull and speed reduction applies if they are more than 105 lbs. 

--

This is the RAW anyway. The spell doesn't alter weight. And weight doesn't change whether you're in the air or not. Pushing or pulling them in the air is no different than pushing or pulling them on the ground. So, nothing about the situation changes the pull/push rules and limits.

Your DM may allow an Athletics check to go beyond these limits but that is DM discretion and not a written rule. 

Personally, given your action is to avoid what is very likely a character being incinerated to ash in moments, I'd say you can make an Athletics check, DC 15, to double push/pull limit and move at half-speed, for that turn, and it uses up your action to make the attempt. Weather and other conditions may apply advantage or disadvantage to this check.

I suppose the falling creature could be the one carrying the owlin as they fall. That would handle the issue of keeping them together during the 60 ft per round of falling.

The grapple rule covers this. You fly to the creature, grapple them, drag them sideways at half-speed.

You'll probably not have enough speed to do this more than once, though, as next turn they will fall out of your grapple.

We didn’t realize the grapple rules cover this situation. Thanks for pointing that out! Although my DM may want to modify the distance to also be dependent on whether or not the party member I’m grappling exceeds my push/pull capacity. I only have a 7 for strength so some of my party members may exceed it depending on what they’re carrying.

Quote from Farling >>

They aren't being levitated, so they will continue to fall at 60 ft per round. Your flying speed is only 30 ft per round (or 60 ft if you Dash). So you will have to dash to keep up with them falling vertically - this doesn't give any extra speed to pull them horizontally as well.

This would make sense if we were talking about upward movement, but it's a lot weirder to apply it for downward movement.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything provides an optional Rate of Falling rule that has creatures fall up to 500 feet on each of its turns; it's a bit of a clunky and strange rule as well, but I would usually interpret that to mean that you could choose to free-fall up to 500 feet if you wanted to.

The question mark is about whether you can halt the fall early, but that's a prime opportunity to ask for some kind of check to reduce the distance of the fall, probably with a DC for success (stop yourself roughly where you wanted to be) with failures causing you to fall further the lower you roll.

On flyers electing to fall and halting their fall it should be noted:

"The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls." (XGtE)
Optional rule: "When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet"

RAW there is no breaking out of a fall.  If a flying creature ceases to fly or hover then they immediately drop the entire distance (or 500' if that optional rule is in effect).

On a flying creature moving another creature under the Featherfall spell.  The Featherfall specifically states that it ends when the creature lands or the spell ends, not when it's grabbed out of the air or such.  This might lead to some strange situations around a much larger creatures falling on them and such, but it seems like the best interpretation.

if a creature with a fly speed grapples another creature which is descending thanks to featherfall, there's nothing to suggest they can't move them horizontally without breaking featherfall, they could even move them vertically up.  The flyer could then choose to cease continued flight and drop at 60' with the grappled featherfall creature, benefiting from the fall rate by hanging on, but anything which breaks their grapple would not see them continue to benefit from featherfall.  If the flyer doesn't descend then either it would need the strength to carry the weight of the creature to prevent them falling further, or it would need to release the grapple.

Consider also, what should happen if the grappler tries to move the featherfall creature down.  IMHO the RAW would prevent it since the rate of descent is fixed to 60' per round and attempting to force the creature to go faster than this would be counter to the spell.

DMs might make rulings to better fit the situation but thats what we have RAW above.  Consider also if someone experiencing featherfall decided to drop something.  The item would fall at the regular rate. So a creature grabbing on could be considered to act much like equipment worn or carried.

Quote from ACEspinz>>

On flyers electing to fall and halting their fall it should be noted:

"The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls." (XGtE)
Optional rule: "When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet"

RAW there is no breaking out of a fall.  If a flying creature ceases to fly or hover then they immediately drop the entire distance (or 500' if that optional rule is in effect).

This isn't strictly true, which is why I mentioned an ability check; the RAW for ability checks is literally "the DM calls for an ability check when a character attempts an action that has a chance of failure". This is one of the most basic tools in the DM's toolkit for a reason, as it lets us handle cases where other rules don't quite fit, meaning that's an equally in-RAW answer.

Because the rules for falling are very clearly geared towards uncontrolled falls with no possibility of stopping yourself (except using feather fall), but flying creatures do have other options. While Xanathar's Guide does provide another optional rule for falling flyers (deduct the fly speed from the fall so they get hurt less) this is still modelling an uncontrolled fall (i.e- knocked out of the sky somehow) rather than an intentional free-fall or dive.

Any and every RAW can be overridden, discarded, altered or re-interpreted by the RAW of:
"As a referee, the DM interprets the rules, decides when to abide by them, and when to change them." (Page 4, 5e DMG)
--- and other rules similar to it that allow a DM to interject whenever they like.

RAW:
"The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls." (XGtE)
Optional rule: "When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet"

The rule you quote is to take an action but RAW there is no point to take an action in the fall.  If they player is falling either by choice or not the RAW use the words "immediately" and "instantly" to describe how quickly they cover the fall distance.  Falling is not movement and does not use a creature's "Speed".  A flyer could RAW choose to fall 100', take the damage, use half their speed to get up and still walk or fly with the remainder of their speed.  Rules that allow a player or creature to break up their movement and actions do not apply to forced movement much like many spells and even opportunity attacks do not apply to movement not part of a player's speed.  If a player sets off a trap, during their turn that shoves the PC 20' in a direction, the player can not call out to take their action after they have travelled 10' of that 20'.  Even if they voluntarily choose to set off the trap and knew they would be hurled 20'.  Obviously, the player could put a case to the DM to arrest their fall or take an action mid-way through the distance of a shove, but that would only be RAW in the sense that the DM can make any and all rules and decisions.

Also RAW: "A falling creature drops at least 60' before they can take any actions" IF the DM decides thats the rule because DMs deciding rules is RAW.

But in these "Rules and Game Mechanics" discussions, it's not useful to bring the DM's ability to overrule the RAW.  Never-the-less I do note in my post that DMs can make rules to better fit the situation.

Quote from ACEspinz>>

The rule you quote is to take an action but RAW there is no point to take an action in the fall.

Action in the context of ability checks isn't always the same as an action during a combat turn, because an action for which you roll a check could be instantaneous (like seeing something) or it could take minutes, hours, days etc. to complete.

In this case, choosing to fall definitely isn't an action, it's just choosing to no longer be flying (so technically part of movement), the action in this case might be limiting the fall. But we have no explicit combat action for that, so we're down to the DM having to make a judgement (sometimes that's just where RAW leaves us).

If they player is falling either by choice or not the RAW use the words "immediately" and "instantly" to describe how quickly they cover the fall distance.

Timing in D&D is rarely that strict, otherwise you would be arguing that it's also impossible to use feather fall in the first place, because if the fall is truly instantaneous then it's already happened by the time you cast the spell as a reaction.

Rules that allow a player or creature to break up their movement and actions do not apply to forced movement much like many spells and even opportunity attacks do not apply to movement not part of a player's speed.

It's not really either forced movement or normal movement; you haven't been forced to fall, you're choosing to, and you do so by not using your normal movement. But this isn't really the key issue.

The problem you're trying to solve is limiting the fall; it's clearly something a flying creature should be able to do, but the question is how do you do that mechanically?

The Actions in Combat rules actually state "you can take one of the actions presented here, an action you gained from your class or a special feature, or an action that you improvise", this is what gives us access to doing things during combat that aren't explicitly defined as combat actions.

One way you could handle this is to allow something to be used with the Ready action, so you'd be burning your action and reaction to do physically (possibly with a check) do something roughly equivalent to feather fall. However, running it this way would leave you unable to do much of anything else as you wouldn't be able to grapple the target to move them unless your DM allowed it as a bonus action (which would be fully outside RAW) or to grab them as a free action and treat them as "carried" for the turn (somewhat stretching RAW).

Part of the problem is what we're modelling is not one character falling then the other diving after them each round, but the latter character attempting to match speeds, so you could possibly argue "match fall speed" as the improvised action, and have its effects last more than one round? i.e- it costs your action and reaction the first time, but thereafter you can maintain it (though the DM could ask for repeat checks to maintain speed).

But in these "Rules and Game Mechanics" discussions, it's not useful to bring the DM's ability to overrule the RAW.

I'm not advocating that the DM overrule RAW, I'm advocating that the DM use what pieces of RAW they have available to them in this case; asking for a check is fully 100% RAW, so is improvising actions etc. We've been posed a situation that the rules clearly were never intended to handle, but which I don't think any of us would disagree is a reasonable thing for a player character to be able to attempt.

I'm discussing the rules & game mechanics available around how this could be solved by a DM using the rules we have.

Quote from Haravikk >>

Quote from ACEspinz>>

The rule you quote is to take an action but RAW there is no point to take an action in the fall.

Action in the context of ability checks isn't always the same as an action during a combat turn, because an action for which you roll a check could be instantaneous (like seeing something) or it could take minutes, hours, days etc. to complete.

In this case, choosing to fall definitely isn't an action, it's just choosing to no longer be flying (so technically part of movement), the action in this case might be limiting the fall. But we have no explicit combat action for that, so we're down to the DM having to make a judgement (sometimes that's where RAW leaves us).

There's nothing to support that falling is part of the player's movement speed. Technical or otherwise. Your movement is made up of your walking speed.  PHB 190 also notes "Your movement can include jumping, climbing, and swimming." none of which are "falling".

Fliers have a flying speed which they can use to descend in a controlled manner.  They have put no provision into the written rules to allow players with a flying character to hack the fall rules for free, controlled movement without expending any movement/speed.

If they player is falling either by choice or not the RAW use the words "immediately" and "instantly" to describe how quickly they cover the fall distance.

Timing in D&D is rarely that strict, otherwise you would be arguing that it's also impossible to use feather fall in the first place, because if the fall is truly instantaneous then it's already happened by the time you cast the spell.

Featherfall is a reaction, not action.  More than that, it's a reaction which "Interrupts" and there are special rules around those in the DMG which specify that they "interrupt" their "trigger" (which is "falling" in this case) rather than take place after the trigger like other reactions (including the "ready" action).  The general rule is that it is NOT interrupted.  Nothing about what I'm saying makes Featherfall impossible because Featherfall has specific rules for itself and specific overrides general.  The general rule for falling is that it's immediate or instant and thats simply what the Rules are as Written.

But the general rule couldn't be more specific: "Rate of Falling - The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls."

RAI by Jeremy Crawford are: "The basic falling rules in D&D assume a fall is instantaneous. If you'd like rules for a very long fall, take a look at the section called "Falling" in "Xanathar's Guide to Everything" (p. 77)

Once again, there is no room for player with flying characters to hack the "fall" rules for free, controlled decent that doesn't cost movement/speed.

Rules that allow a player or creature to break up their movement and actions do not apply to forced movement much like many spells and even opportunity attacks do not apply to movement not part of a player's speed.

It's not really either forced movement or normal movement; you haven't been forced to fall, you're choosing to, and you do so by not using your normal movement. But this isn't really the key issue.

The problem you're trying to solve is limiting the fall; it's clearly something a flying creature should be able to do, but the question is how do you do that mechanically?

The Actions in Combat rules actually state "you can take one of the actions presented here, an action you gained from your class or a special feature, or an action that you improvise", this is what gives us access to doing things that aren't explicitly defined in the combat rules.

One way you could handle this is to allow something to be used with the Ready action, so you'd be burning your action and reaction to do physically (possibly with a check) something roughly equivalent to feather falling. However running it this way would leave you unable to do much of anything else as you wouldn't be able to grapple the target to move them unless your DM allowed it as a bonus action (which would be fully outside RAW) or to grab them as a free action and treat them as "carried" for the turn (somewhat stretching RAW).

 

Part of the problem is what we're modelling is not one character falling then the other diving after them each round, but the latter character attempting to match speed, so you could maybe argue "matching fall speed" as the improvised action, and have its effects last more than one round? i.e- it costs your action the first time, but thereafter you can maintain it (or repeat the check at the end of the turn or something).

There is nothing in the rules to suggest that this is clearly something a flyer should be able to do.

From XgtE it gives the following rules for fliers to fall: "A flying creature in flight falls if it is knocked prone, if its speed is reduced to 0 feet, or if it otherwise loses the ability to move, unless it can hover or it is being held aloft by magic, such as the fly spell."

Nowhere in there does it even give the option for a flier to fall voluntarily.  However you can certainly choose to fall prone mid air and there are rules around this: "a flying creature descends 500 feet on the turn when it falls, just as other creatures do. But if that creature starts any of its later turns still falling and is prone, it can halt the fall on its turn by spending half its flying speed to counter the prone condition (as if it were standing up in midair)."

Note the part "a flying creature descends 500 feet on the turn when it falls, just as other creatures do". Right there we have specific rules on what happens to a flying creature when it falls.  It descends 500 feet.  Not "UPTO" 500 feet, just 500 feet.

We also get a rule on how a creature can halt it's fall.  Specifically if it STARTS any of it's LATER turns still falling and is prone, it can halt the fall by spending half it's move to effectively stand.

Even the following rule that covers the initial fall only allows reduction of the damage from hitting the ground by the amount equal to the creature's flight speed which is about simulating "The creature flapping its wings furiously or taking similar measures to slow the velocity of its fall."

Once again, there is no hack in these written rules to grant player's free, controlled, decent, without expending movement.

On your idea to use the "Ready" action, remember the DMG rules around using reactions.  Readied actions that use the reaction take place AFTER the trigger.  Only specific reactions such as Counterspell and Featherfall have the "Interrupt" feature in their wording.

I'm not advocating that the DM overrule RAW, I'm advocating that the DM use the various pieces of RAW explicitly available to them (asking for a check is fully 100% RAW, so is improvising actions etc.). We've been posed a situation that the rules clearly were never intended to handle, I'm discussing the rules & game mechanics available around how this could be solved by a DM.

 
PHB on Improvising an Action: "When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure."

Thats the rule on improvising an action.  It specifically notes that it's doing something not detailed in the rules.  It's the same as the rule on the DM interpreting and implementing the rules they see fit.  The only difference is this is the player asking the DM to interpret or implement a one off or homebrew rule and it is equally as useful as the DM's ability to overrule RAW in these discussions on the rules and game mechanics because ANYTHING could be argued as RAW because the player can ASK the DM (i.e. improvised).

As I said:
Any and every RAW can be overridden, discarded, altered or re-interpreted by the RAW of:
"As a referee, the DM interprets the rules, decides when to abide by them, and when to change them." (Page 4, 5e DMG)
--- and other rules similar to it that allow a DM to interject whenever they like.

Many DMs might well allow a player with a flying character to deliberately fall and cease that fall at a specific distance less than the full 500' or distance to the ground.  It might be a one off, or a house rule.  It might be a deliberation on an improvised action a player requests they allow and involve ability checks or costs in their movement.  But those would be in-house DM rulings, not RAW.

Quote from ACEspinz >>

There is nothing in the rules to suggest that this is clearly something a flyer should be able to do.

Because there doesn't need to be, as that's simply not how the rules are written and they're very clear about this from the outset; pretty much the very first rule of how to play is that the player describes what they want to do, and the DM describes the result. That's rule #1 of the game, it's as much RAW as everything else; the purpose of the rules is to enable the game to be played, not the opposite.

Can a flying creature control a dive? Absolutely; common sense tells us this, and the rules frequently encourage us to use common sense in applying them. Should it be easy or free, especially in a tense situation? Probably not. So we look to the tools we have to make it work.

Again, this is a case that is very specifically outside of the rules, but the absence of RAW telling us how it should work does not mean that something is impossible; you are absolutely free to run games in which players are simply incapable of ever doing anything cool or fun because it isn't explicitly called out in the rules, but good luck keeping any players if you do.

There's nothing to support that falling is part of the player's movement speed.

I didn't say it's part of their speed, I said it's part of movement; for a flying creature falling is as simple as no longer flying while you're in the air, if you want to fall you can do so by using 0 feet of movement.

My point was that it's also clearly not an action; I was setting up what I (apparently foolishly) thought was the very simple concept of readying an action for when you fall, because this would be fully in line with feather fall which you insist works, even though your interpretation of falling means that it never can.

Featherfall is a reaction, not action.  More than that, it's a reaction which "Interrupts" and there are special rules around those in the DMG which specify that they "interrupt" their "trigger" (which is "falling" in this case) rather than take place after the trigger like other reactions (including the "ready" action).

Any held action is a reaction, especially if you hold said action in advance of what you know is going to happen (because you are the one choosing for it to happen). When you ready an action you choose what the trigger is, which could very easily be "when I begin to fall" or "before I fall beyond 60 feet".

Moreover, feather fall makes no exception to its timing, unlike shield which explicitly includes the triggering attack.

The general rule is that it is NOT interrupted.

There is no general rule on when reactions occur; the DMG section you refer to isn't a rule on when reactions apply, it's a "rule of thumb" on how to handle cases where the timing of the reaction is difficult to adjudicate.

This is why feather fall works, because it isn't difficult to adjudicate since it's blindingly obvious it needs to trigger during (or at the start of) a fall otherwise it simply cannot function.

If the player is specifically trying to perform a controlled fall/dive, then any attempt to control it must likewise clearly happen during the fall; this is not a difficult to adjudicate case with regards to timing, because you know what they're trying to do and when. For a flying creature (that is clearly capable of not falling) the DM's decision isn't whether it's possible, it's whether it should be easy (requires a check) and what it should cost to do it.

Meanwhile an improvised action by its very nature will always become the more specific case in beating any general rule; the question isn't can you improvise an action, but what should that action look like that makes the most sense within the rules?

It feels to me like you're approaching this entire problem from the perspective of someone who's decided first that it shouldn't be possible, and is interpreting the rules specifically to back that up, but the bulk of RAW is a toolkit for DM's to use; even during combat players are invited to improvise actions, and this is with good reason.

Until I popped into this thread I hadn't even considered the need to do something like this, but the game is clearly built with the unexpected in mind; we're given tools to use and that's exactly what I'm proposing be done. You can quibble over the specifics of how it can be done, but if something isn't a clearly unreasonable request by a player, then the rules are there to enable that to happen, the question is which tools should you use to handle it.

The game literally says:

When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.

THAT is as much RAW as anything else in any book, because sometimes "we don't have specific rules, ask your DM but here are some of the possibilities" is the correct answer in RAW, because that's how RAW itself handles cases that aren't explicitly covered.

This might seem like a strange question, but when a person is falling at 60 feet per turn due to feather fall, is there any restriction on their ability to move laterally on their turn? Do they need a flying speed to do so? Is their speed set to 0 while falling? Or can they just "walk" in the air up to their speed on their turn? One might logically explain this as moving laterally, the way a skydiver might. Or one might not explain it at all and simply point to whether the rules allow it.

Quote from TexasDevin >>

This might seem like a strange question, but when a person is falling at 60 feet per turn due to feather fall, is there any restriction on their ability to move laterally on their turn? Do they need a flying speed to do so? Is their speed set to 0 while falling? Or can they just "walk" in the air up to their speed on their turn? One might logically explain this as moving laterally, the way a skydiver might. Or one might not explain it at all and simply point to whether the rules allow it.

That's an interesting one; we only specifically have speeds for walking, climbing, jumping (sort of), swimming or flying so flying is the obvious one to need for moving while in "flight" (if you think of falling as just flying badly). So on that basis there are no particular rules for it.

You could (very loosely) handle it as walking with "difficult terrain" (pretty difficult to walk when there's nothing to walk on) but it feels like something that probably needs a more custom solution like a check (to make sure you're actually in control and not just spinning wildly) with the speed you can move maybe accounting for the speed of the fall (so feather fall will also slow the rate at which you can angle the descent to somewhere specific).

My only concern is making dive-bombing barbarians a thing, but they already kind of are, and rule of cool says don't worry about that.

I think OneD&D is definitely going to need a full section on aerial movement. 😂

I think this question is settled by "falling is not walking." and movement says you can walk up to your speed.